1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of hand tools, and more particularly to a novel releasable wrench socket having a tapered walled receptacle for insertably receiving a variety of sized fastener heads, and which further includes yieldable means for retaining the socket onto the wrench.
2. Brief Description of the Prior Art
In the past, it has been the conventional practice to produce wrench sockets which have a receptacle having stamped straight parallel sidewalls so that the distance between the sidewalls will accept only a particular sized metric or standard head dimension of a fastener. Generally, such conventional sockets are provided with six, eight, or twelve points. Therefore, a set of sockets are required in order to accommodate a full range of sizes. Particularly in the case of metric fastener heads, workmen sometimes attempt to employ non-metric receptacles on sockets to work metric heads on fasteners, which causes damage to both the socket and the fastener head. Because of the straight wall on the conventional sockets, only fastener heads of the same dimension are intended to fit within the receptacle of the socket and, in fact, only conformal receptacles and fastener heads can be mated particularly in size and shape.
Therefore, a long-standing need has existed to provide a universal-type of wrench socket which includes tapered inwardly diverging non-parallel sidewalls so as to accommodate insertion and engagement with a variety of sized and shaped fastener heads. The inventive wrench socket should hold nuts and bolts and be employed for any application requiring the nuts or bolts to be placed in difficult areas normally unreachable by the workman. The wrench socket should have the capability of releasably retaining bolts or nuts in the receptacle in addition to the ability to accommodate a variety of different bolt or nut sizes and shapes.